Podencos and galgos both suffer unimagineable cruelty at the hands of the Spanish hunters and gitanos – Spanish gypsies.  Most publicity comes from the regions of Andalucia and Murcia, as well as the Spanish Islands Ibiza and the Canary Islands.  However, the Spanish interior including the region of Extremadura is also hell on earth for galgos and podencos.  Here is a report from Fepaex – Federacion de Protectoras de Animales de Extremadura.

THE PROBLEM for  HUNTING DOGS  in EXTREMADURA =  Irresponsible HUNTERS + passive and complicit

We will not go into the dark world of hunting and interests.  Fepaex looks into it and suffice it to say that hunting is an activity that involves killing animals for fun. Killing for fun seems a barbaric practice, anti-pedagogical, despicable and incompatible with civilized society. Killing for fun desensitized to the suffering of a living being, void of empathy, promotes gratuitous violence brutalizes a people and delayed our progress. We are against the hunt, whether it is subsidized, sponsored or it if offers us any help with our taxes!

We do not believe that hunting is "a culture to protect", but an activity to eradicate unethical. Nor do we believe that hounds are "useful hunting" or disposable tools, such as hunter-galgueros think-Rehalero and management. Hunting dogs are living beings and have rights in Extremadura granted by Law 5 / 2002 on Protection of Animals.  Animals have the right that these laws are applied.

As we know that there is no political will to end animal abuse in our community and also seek to perpetuate the Extremadura de los Santos Inocentes-killing bull-hunting, we will try, at least make public the dog problem, with every club.

Let's start with some questions to see the problem:

    * How many dogs starving, injured, pregnant females … do you see at our roundabouts, in our parks, our roads and how many are hunting dogs?
    * How many traffic accidents have involved hounds?
    * How many bodies of hunting dogs do we see on the roads and highways?
    * How many dogs die, they end up lost or injured in a coffin after a hunt?
    * How many animals are bred illegally and uncontrolled by hunter-galgueros?
    * How many hunting dogs get old?
    * How many hunters take their dogs to the vet when the dogs need veterinary care? 
    * How many veterinarians are aware of the illegalities and abuse of hunting dogs and look away?
    * How many refuges are run and funded by hunting federations to provide a decent retirement for their animals?
    * How many hunters do you see picking up stray hunting dogs, injured, abandoned? Where is the much-vaunted love for their dogs?
    * How many of the animals that come into hell in perreras and killing stations are hunting dogs?
    * How much does it cost us financially in Extremadura for the collection and destruction of stray dogs discarded by hunters? And ethically? And pedagogically?
    * How many abusers and illegal breeders of hunting dogs have been sanctioned by the Ministry of Agriculture?
    * How much blood, sweat and tears do we shed to try to alleviate Animal Protection due to the irresponsibility of the hunters to their dogs and passivity, complicity of the government?
    * Time spent in programming the Canal Extremadura TV, we all pay, to promote ours, "Bulls-Matanza-Hunting" and how dedicated is the Channel to educating that animals deserve respect and to publicize their rights in our community?
    * The hunting grounds are public administration. What happens when we walk quietly and a hunter overwhelms us with his gun and his activity "recreational and cultural? Where are our rights? Where is the image of enjoying the wonderful nature of the Extremadura to sell abroad?

THE SOLUTION to the problem of hunting dogs in Extremadura is common sense that hunters are responsible for their dogs. Simple as that, treat their animals while using them as tools and, when they do not serve, provide a decent retirement for their hunting dogs.

If the hunter-galgueros-Rehalero take responsibility for their animals and meet our Law 5 / 2002; in our parks, roundabouts, roads, highways, roads, shelters and kennels-killing stations/slaughterhouse, we would see at least 60% less than the poor dogs we see today.

 Why do hunter-Rehalero galgueros and Associations and Federations related to hunting not take responsibility for their dogs? Why not have, for example, adoption programs or shelters to provide a decent retirement for their animals? Because we come to the passivity and complicity of the administration which is the other side of the problem.

Passivity because of the administration, or education, or monitoring, or inspecting or sanctions, as required by our Animal Protection Law. With the impunity enjoyed it very easy for hunters to cross, breeding, neglect and abuse all the dogs they want.

Administration complicity because, with our money, offers aid-grants, sponsorships for hunting and also offers free hunter-galgueros Rehalero Service collection and recycling their waste dogs. It is curious that we all pay taxes for the collection of the waste we generate and that the union of hunting, which is less than 10% of the population of Extremadura, has a free garbage collection of by the Administration .

It is not only what it costs us to this Service in Extremadura, but there is all the unnecessary and avoidable animal suffering included. The Administration does not recycle the trash of hunters 'pets' as we would like, but has nineteen perreras/slaughterhouses to destroy them, adding a few days of torture before. The Hell of the Diputación Provincial Olivenza in Badajoz is an example of an unethical, expensive, illegal and unjust Service.  We sponsor ALL Extremadura for galgueros-Rehalero hunters to  dispose of their waste game, encouraging irresponsibility. For how much longer? …

A short, quick and fair solution to end the problem of hunting dogs in Extremadura is that the Administration should make the hunters take responsibility for their dogs.  The Administration should require an end to the abandonment of animal protection functions to which we are accustomed, it is useless.  Collaborate with the Administration in the implementation of Law 5 / 2002 Animal Protection of Extremadura, which was the purpose for which the Federation created the law.

What we have left out so much injustice and absurdity with our animals? …

The only possible solution we see is the social pressure to join ALL, together, we break the inertia and anesthesia and take the direction of our future to begin creating a sensible and civilized Extremadura which we want. Peer pressure is the only way we have to solve it and the rest of our citizens problems. the Administration has no interest in solving it. Extremadura is created for and by ALL and ALL. What are we waiting? …

 "HUNTER-Galguera-Rehalero: YOUR DOG IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. take  Responsibility for IT"

"IT'S TIME TO LOBBY THE HUNTERS ABOUT THE WELFARE OF THEIR HUNTING DOGS"  "and provide a decent retirement for their pet" waste "

To read the article in Spanish, click here